Modem Times 2.0 - Michael Moorcock [30]
He looked at his wrists.
“What’s the time? My watches have stopped.”
14. BETRAYAL IN IRAQ
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CHRISTMAS 1962. SNOW was still falling just after dawn when Jerry sprung the gate into Ladbroke Grove/Elgin Gardens and walked onto the path, leaving black pointed prints and tiny heel marks. He had never made a cooler trail. Slipping between the gaps in the netting, he crossed the tennis court and stopped to look back. The marks might have been those of an exotic animal. Nobody coming behind him would know a human had made them. Yet they were already filling up again.
He would never be sure he had deceived anyone. He darted into the nearest back garden. From the French windows came the sound of a Schoenberg piano roll. The snow was a foot deep against the brick wall, on the small lawn. Yellow light fell from the window above. He heard a woman’s voice not unlike his mother’s. “Go back to bed, love. It’s not time yet.” He recognized Mrs. Pash. Her grandchildren were up early,pedalling the piano. He caught a glimpse of the tree through the half-drawn curtains.
Jerry stepped softly out of the little garden. A blind moved on the first floor in the corner house. The colonel and his wife were looking at him. Another minute and they’d call the police. Their hangovers always made them doubly suspicious. He bowed and went back the way he had come, back into Ladbroke Grove, back across to Blenheim Crescent, past the Convent of the Poor Clares, on his left, to 51, where his mother still lived.
Humming to himself, Jerry went down the slippery area steps to let himself in with his key. Nobody was up. He unshipped the sack from his shoulder and checked out the row of stockings hanging over the black, greasy kitchen range from which a few wisps of smoke escaped. He opened the stove’s top and shovelled in more coke. His mum had put the turkey in to cook overnight. There wasn’t a tastier smell in the whole world. Then, carefully, he began to fill the stockings from his sack.
Upstairs, he thought he heard someone stirring. He could imagine what the tree looked like, how delighted Catherine and Frank would be when they came down to see their presents.
Outside, the snow still fell, softening the morning. He found the radio set and turned it on. Christmas carols sounded. The noises upstairs grew louder.
Travel certainly made you appreciate the simple things of life, he thought. His eyes filled with happy tears. He went to the kitchen cupboard and took out the bottle of Heine he had put there the night before. Frank hadn’t found it. The seal was unbroken. Jerry helped himself to a little nip.
Mrs. Cornelius came thumping downstairs in her old carpet slippers. She wore a bright red and green dressing gown, her hair still in curlers, last night’s make-up still smeared across her face. She rubbed her eyes, staring with approval at the lumpy stockings hanging over the stove. Behind her peered bleary Frank, Catherine’s huge blue eyes, suspicious Colonel Pyat.
“Cor,” she said. “Merry Christmas, love.” “Merry Christmas, mum.” He leaned to kiss her. “God help us, one and all.”
THE END
Parts of this story originally appeared in Nature, Planet Stories, The New Statesman, Time, The Spectator, Gardens and Guns, Fantasy Spots, PC World, Wired, The Happy Mag, Boy’s Friend Library, Schoolboy’s Own Library, Popular Science, The Magnet, Nelson Lee Library, Sexton Blake Library, Union Jack Library, Good Housekeeping, Sports Illustrated, Texas Monthly, Harper’s, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Guardian, Novae Terrae, and others.
MY LONDONS
THERE